


A Stranger Well-Known

by Rising_Phoenix



Series: Phoenix' 2020 Birthday Raffle [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Childhood Friends, Emotions, Gay Sex, Joe is kinda Pierre Michel, M/M, Making Up, Nicky is a passenger, Orient Express - AU, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, men with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26647918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/pseuds/Rising_Phoenix
Summary: Joe is a conductor on the Orient Express, serving breakfast to a passenger that is no stranger to him...things happen...
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Phoenix' 2020 Birthday Raffle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1938841
Comments: 16
Kudos: 158





	A Stranger Well-Known

**Author's Note:**

  * For [idiom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiom/gifts).



> Following idiom's prompt as close as I could, "Nicky is traveling and lonely, he has some kind of complaint or need, Joe checks on him in his private compartment... things happen..."
> 
> The 3rd place winner of my Birthday Raffle, for [Idiom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idiom/profile):  
> a fanfic commission of your choice, the 3rd place with a minimum of 1,000 words -- I hope you like it! 💚💚💚

Joe balanced the tray on one hand, and, straightening his back, knocked twice on the door of compartment number 15. He listened, the head slightly leaned forward and tilted to the side, for any reaction from the other side, and when none came, he knocked again twice in quick succession. The Orient Express was busy with guests and many were talking about the exhibition that the train held on this journey, excited to see the exquisite jewelry that the train’s owner had arranged as an additional attraction.

“Your breakfast, sir,” he then said, soft voice singing the words in his smooth accent that only a few people would be able to notice.

Just when he got ready to knock again, the door was opened from the inside and a man stared right into his eyes, making Joe swallow. He had known who stayed in compartment 15 on this journey, had seen him when he had checked in and had even made short eye contact, but seeing him up close, seeing the shades of blue, silver, and green in those unique eyes, it took his breath away.

The man looked for seconds that felt much too long into his eyes, certainly seeing his insecurity and how uncomfortable he felt being here, and then averted his eyes and turned a little to the side, making way for him to step into the luxurious compartment with the dark woods, brass details, and blue accents, a room like he would never be able to stay in himself.

We passed the passenger and put the tray onto the small table by the windows and adjusted the vase with the single magnolia, turned, ready to wish the passenger a good day, but was met with the sight of the man shutting the door and standing right in front of it, leaning against the door with crossed arms.

“What...?” Joe asked, instead of saying: _“Bon appetit.”_

The man again stared right into his eyes. Joe wished there was amusement, playfulness, and gentleness like he had gotten to know them, but instead was met with sarcasm, mockery, and cruelty. He now noticed that the man was only clad in dark trousers and a white shirt underneath a waistcoat, the wavy hair fashionable long and falling into his forehead, but not styled or combed, as if he had only just gotten up.

Joe pressed his lips together and shifted a little, uncertain how to react to the provocation that lay in this simple move of the other, and looked around the compartment. A suitcase stood open on the floor, items of clothing chaotic next to it, but not only the clothing of the man. There was very clearly visible a piece of dark green lingerie. Silk maybe, with black lace. Joe frowned, and a sting of an unknown feeling pinched his guts.

“I would like to leave,” he then only said. “I must return to my station.”

The other nodded.

“So it really is you,” he said, a hint of laughter in his voice, heavily accented like it always had been. “I was not sure yesterday. Now I am.”

“Would that be all...Monsieur...?”

The other raised a brow.

“Smith,” he completed then.

“That is not your name, Nicolò,” Joe replied, frowing.

“It is now.".

“What are you doing here?” Joe said, making a step forward, forcing himself to be courageous and pointed to the lingerie on the floor. “Betraying a lady of her fortune?”

Nicolò laughed. 

“Yusuf,” he said, making himself a step forward as if he wanted to close the distance between them, but Joe made now a step back. “Still the same? Jealousy doesn’t suit you.”

Joe’s brows shot up.

“Jealousy?” He asked. “I have not seen you in...in years. How dare you imply I would...”

“Aren’t you?”

“No!”

Nicolò’s right shoulder twitched. He raised a hand and touched the shiny metal button on Joe’s uniform.

“Shame,” he whispered. “Tell me...is it not your job to serve the passengers?”

“Of course it is,” Joe replied quickly, before realizing what Nicolò was implying until he noticed the smirk on Nicolò’s face.

“You’ve always been such a good, obedient boy.”

“I...,” Joe gasped when Nicolò inched even closer now. “I’m no boy anymore. And I’ve never been obedient.”

Now it was Nicolò who raised a brow, and the smile on his lips was no longer the mirror of mockery, but genuine and soft, almost like that of the boy Joe had grown up with. Those were still the same curious eyes, there was still the mole on the side of his face, his curved lips, the nose that was a little too large for his pretty face. And still, he had grown into a man that Joe had left behind years ago when he had realized that the boy he had fallen in love with had turned into a man he would never be able to continue loving. A lie he had told himself, that had convinced himself of a decision that he had regretted the moment he had stepped out of the house where he had left Nicolò behind, into the rain that hid his tears from the world.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò whispered and then leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips before he left his personal space a glimpse of a moment later.

Joe’s tongue flicked over his lips, chasing the firm softness of Nicolo’s lips, the taste of brandy and cigars, but underlying the taste of the boy he had known as long as he could think back.

And before either of them knew what happened, years of being apart meaning suddenly nothing, they flew into each other’s arms, lips becoming one, opening under the pressure of the other, taking in the taste, flavor, scent that had become a painful memory, the residue of a life that was no more.

“Nicky,” Joe whispered into the kiss, feeling how the other shuddered under the sound of his childhood nickname coming from Joe’s lips. “Oh God, Nicky.”

Nicky hummed into the kiss, his hands already nestling at the brass buttons and trying to get closer, to get more, as if his survival was depending on feeling again Joe’s skin under his hands, but even after he had managed to open three of the dreaded buttons, he found himself not touching smooth skin but the undershirt that Joe was wearing. Joe in the meantime had taken his hat off, thrown it onto a chair, and was pulling himself at Nicky’s waistcoat, which was thankfully unbuttoned, and started to work at the shirt, his lips finding a way from Nicky’s lips to his cheek, down his neck until he kissed his collarbone, sucking gently at the spot he knew would drive Nicky crazy with need, and indeed, he moaned and let one hand mess up the carefully gelled and combed black hair of the man who went down to his knees, his red lips shining from kisses, and looking up to him from those large, pleading black eyes in which he once thought his whole world to reside in.

His right hand touched gently Joe’s cheek, finding his fingers to be trembling and not as secure as he wanted to appear, his smile helpless and showing more of the long-gone boy than he wanted to allow anyone to see. He saw how Joe’s hand trembled too when he raised it to start opening Nicky’s belt and trousers, their eyes forming a connection he had never experienced with anyone else. He remembered their first stolen kiss when they had still been boys, behind the stables. He remembered their first clumsy attempt to touch each other. He remembered the first time their bodies had become one, two boys, not quite men, knowing it was forbidden and still there had been no force that could have stopped them. He remembered...

His eyes, just closed in memories, flew open when his half-hard cock was suddenly engulfed by warm wetness, his fingers cramping into Joe’s hair. He did not want this, he wanted it all, he did want to stop, he could not stop. This was wrong and oh so right.

A tear ran down Nicky’s cheek, unwanted, and he hoped that Joe would never see him weak again, that he would not notice this fragility while he was sucking the rest of Nicky’s sense out of him. He was here with a plan, and he had not expected to meet here the one man who would be able to stop him, to interfere with his plans.

He let out a whimper when Joe’s tongue licked a wet stripe up the underside of his now hard shaft, still looking up, watching Nicky’s reactions to his ministrations, tasting the saltiness and flavor of the man who would always be his Nicky.

“Don’t make me come like this, hayati,” Nicky whispered, his unsteady fingers touching Joe’s clean shaved cheek. “Not like this.”

Joe nodded and went to stand up again, pulling Nicky immediately into another kiss, holding him so close that he could feel the other’s heartbeat through his clothing and skin, aligned with his own, like they were still meant to be together, to be one.

Getting impatient, Nicky started to tear at Joe’s uniform jacket, and, worried he would rip apart the fabric, Joe shrugged out of the jacket himself, pulling his undershirt over his head, and when he looked back at Nicky, he saw the knowing smirk he had seen a thousand times before. Nicky’s pale eyes assessed his body, but never in a way that made Joe feel insecure about himself, always telling him with just a look that he was all Nicky ever wanted.

Again, their eyes were deep-set into each other while they got undressed separately, quickly and in a hurry, knowing that they had not all the time they wished they could spend together. A part of Joe wished he was only just a passenger and not working here, and he hoped that nobody would miss and go looking for him. He would be fired on the spot, but on second thought, it was worth it, and yet it was insane.

He pulled Nicky close again, shared another deep kiss, before he pushed him onto the close bed, but before he could get close and turn Nicky around, the other was crawling over the bed to reach the side table and opened the drawer, returning a moment later with a small vial in his hand.

“Never unprepared,” Nicky chuckled and looked up to the gorgeous man, whose dark eyes were clouded with lust.

“You are...,” Joe whispered with a hoarse voice, while Nicky turned onto his stomach, spreading his legs, encouraging him to go on.

“Perfect?” Nicky suggested.

Joe could not help but laugh but then again went to his knees between Nicky’s spread thighs and kissed first one, then the other round globe of his behind, pulling them then apart with his hands and kissing the now uncovered space between. Nicky bit into the blanket into which his fingers were now grabbing, trying to stop the moan, looking for something to hold onto, while Joe licked around his hole, then tongued him and opened him thoroughly up for what both knew would come soon. Nicky pushed his hips back, his whole body shivering at the touches that now meant so much more than the encounters he had in the past years. A second with Joe, his Yusuf, would mean more than a lifetime with someone else. He had always known that but he would never admit it.

After minutes of Joe bringing him to the brink of falling apart, he felt how Joe got up behind him, and then lined himself up after using the ingredients of the vial, and pushed agonizingly slow into him.

Both men held their breath before Nicky pushed back when Joe pulled out, and soon they had remembered the dance that their bodies had learned together. Both did not dare say a word, the compartment only filled with their moans and the sound of their meeting bodies, until Joe again pulled out and turned Nicky around, facing him. Immediately, Nicky had angled up his legs, bending himself into half, and Joe pushed again his hard cock into him, covering his body with his own, returning to kissing him.

When Nicky looked up, through a curtain of tears, he saw that Joe’s beautiful eyes were filled with tears as well, overwhelmed by the long-held back emotions. Joe’s movements were slow, intense, meeting every single time that spot inside Nicky that pulled more moans from him, before Nicky felt how an avalanche of shiver went down Joe’s back, telling him how close his lover was.

His lover.

He furrowed his brows at that thought, fighting all those feelings that he had never wanted to feel again, but seconds later, his ability to think was finally taken from him when Joe came deep inside him, only a blink of an eye before he felt his own body react to the stimulation and he painted his own belly and Joe’s as well with his own seed, not even having been touched.

Joe and Nicky held each other in a tight embrace, unable to let the other go, only slowly catching their breath, only slowly regaining control of their senses. They clung to each other, holding the other close, not ever wanting to let go again, in the desperation of the knowledge that they were facing a reality in which the love that would always be a part of their soul, would mean nothing but more pain, more tears, more loneliness, more heartbreak.

“I...I have to return to work,” Joe said after a while, sitting up and only slowly Nicky slipped from his embrace, remaining on the bed while Joe got up and started to get dressed, not daring to look back at the man he would leave behind once more. Maybe this time forever. Like then, he asked himself if Nicky would remember him, or if he was just a scratch on his bedpost like he had told him.

When Joe turned around, closing the last of his uniform’s buttons, he saw that Nicky was sitting in his bed, leaning against the wall, the blanket surrounding his legs and hips like a cloud, a bruise forming on the pale skin of his collarbone, the mark of what had just happened minutes ago.

“Why are you really here, Nicky?” Joe asked. “What do you want on the Orient Express?”

Nicky looked at him, and a smile formed on his lips, eyes filled with mischief and still, there was a hint of sadness in them.

And when Nicky raised his brows, wiggling them a little and chewing on the strawberry he had picked from the breakfast tray, Joe gasped, realizing why Nicolò di Genova, master thief, conman and deceiver, was on board the train.

The exhibition.

He was here to steal from the exhibition.

**Author's Note:**

> The backstory to this snippet:  
> Joe and Nicky grew up together, Joe the son of servants, Nicky from a rich Genovese family, and they fell in love. Then, Nicky's father lost their fortune being a gambler, committing suicide and leaving his family without the means to keep their lifestyle. Nicky, having a mischievous streak, became a thief - something Joe could not live without, hating the thought that his lover brings himself into danger. After a fight and Nicky's reluctance to change, Joe left several years ago, never forgetting. Now, Nicky is on the train where Joe works, during a jewelry exhibition and it's clear to Joe suddenly that Nicky is there to steal the jewels...
> 
> Find me on Twitter  
> https://twitter.com/RisingPhnx1


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